


Storyteller

by nevermindgrantaire



Series: She Keeps Me Warm [13]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, First Kiss, Folklore, Multi, Partying, storyteller!Grantaire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindgrantaire/pseuds/nevermindgrantaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all her life, Enjolras has never been to a party before, has never left the village she grew up in. The first time she decides to join her friends and try to let go a little for once, she meets R, a strange liar/storyteller who lives in the woods. Things kind of go from there.<br/>(this is very very very loosely based off Jerusalem, the play, but like very loosely. The only thing I reckon is the same is the aesthetic of it all)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Enjolras picked her way through the woods awkwardly with her torch, her feet stumbling on the loose roots and branches brushing against her face. She could hear music, loud and pounding, and she could hear people dancing, shouting, whooping, but she couldn't seem to find them.

She'd never understood why her friends came up there, never understood the allure of dancing the night away and getting completely wasted with the weird girl who lives in a caravan in the middle of the woods, but they loved it and her and they kept on going back.

They’d invited her with them that night- they always did. But she’d turned them down in favour of studying of course, so when they’d all walked up there when the forest was still lit up with daylight, she’d been at home, sat in her bedroom surrounded by her books. Of course, her peace hadn’t lasted long once her dad had got home and after an hour of being shouted down she’d given up and decided that for once she was going to come and join her friends for once in the woods.

The music was getting louder now, the trees getting less dense. She could see the light seeping through the trees, so relieved that she’d found his way up there finally. Walking through the final circle of trees that surrounded the clearing, she looked around at the party going on.

The caravan was an old 60’s one, covered in colourful swirls of paint and with bunting strung up all over it. Although, on closer inspection it looked less like little flags and more like lacy underwear. She blushed the colour of the communist manifesto, biting her lip. Some of them… She couldn’t even work out which way up they were meant to go on. The grass grew long all around the caravan but it was difficult to see because of the huge group of people dancing around outside it. There was glitter on almost every surface, and for some reason, a sofa had been dragged out into the middle and turned upside down to form a sort of dancing stage. Candles were scattered all over the place, hung up in lanterns and stuck into the branches of the trees.

There were a few people she didn’t know, but most of them were her friends or at least people she recognised from around the village. Courfeyrac and Jehan were bouncing up and down in the middle of the crowd, both wearing flower crowns and covered in the glitter and with expressions of pure happiness on their faces. Floreal was dancing Stevie Nicks style beneath the branches of one of the trees, the candle light flickering on her lace-y shawl. He could roughly make out the shapes of Joly and Bossuet in the darker edges of the crowd, Joly trying to do the running man and Bossuet happily rocking the Macarena in a pitiful attempt to impress the pretty curly-haired girl dancing between them. Feuilly was up on the stage in his check shirt and lumberjack beard, obviously pretty drunk and wiggling his hips in time to the music while Bahorel filmed him on his phone.

Enjolras smiled to herself at the lot of them, unsure whether she should join them or not. They looked like they were having fun. Jehan caught her eye from the other side of the gathering and grinned- they were utterly in their element, glitter and flowers and happiness. She took a little step forward towards the light, but before she could snag the arm of Ferre as he danced (wow, Ferre was actually dancing!) past, someone bumped her arm. “Shit, sorry babe!”

“Oh! It’s ok!” Enjolras stuttered as the culprit wandered off into the crowd, catching a flash of dark jeans and long legs and green hoodie.

She stood still, unsure what to do when suddenly there was a loud pinging of someone hitting a glass and the music turned down.

A tall, lanky girl in a green hoodie and skinny jeans (the one who’d just bumped her!) with curly dark hair piled up on top of her head and tumbling out around her face, barely covered by a green beanie was clambering up onto the top of the sofa stage, a shot glass in her outstretched hand. “Friends!” She shouted, slurring the last word, and everyone cheered. A tattoo, a vine, wound its way up her exposed wrist. “Friends! Outcasts! Dregs of society and saviours of suburbia!” She raised her glass and cheers rippled again through the crowd. “It appears that fair Artemis has decided to grace our beggar’s banquet!”

Their eyes suddenly met and Enjolras jumped, stepping back as everyone turned to stare at her. Feuilly grinned. “Enjolras!”

“You came!”

“Come, join us!” The girl on the sofa called, and Enjolras eyed her warily, tentatively stepping forward. She reminded her of an Arthurian legend somehow, a beautiful witch with some kind of dark curse to lay on the world, a mythical storyteller with tales to weave with her words. “Come, drink and make merry for tonight could be your last night on earth after all. Might as well make the best of it!”

Eyebrow raised, Enjolras let the crowd of her friends shuffle her towards the sofa, close enough that she had to look up to keep eye contact with the girl, who was balancing right on the edge of the sofa. She couldn’t stop looking her in the eyes.

She had strange eyes. They were dark and deep, so deep that she felt like he was falling into them, like huge dark whirlpools. There were tiny little laughter lines around them, and dark brown eyelashes far too long for her face. But they were so dark, hypnotically dark. So dark and deep that they seemed endless. Dark and deep and lovely, and…

She blinked, looking away for a moment, and when she looked back, the girl’s face wrinkled into a broad grin and winked at her.

She leaned down and handed her the glass. "Drink up." Enjolras bit her lip, and the other girl grinned, widening her eyes challengingly. “I dare you,” she breathed, her face suddenly far too close and not close enough.

Then she straightened up, addressing the rest of the group. “We are the children of a revolution that never happened, the fallen stars of our generation! Artists whose muses took the long road out of here years ago. Poets who have run out of words.” Jehan whooped especially loudly at that. “We’re celestial, not of this earth and we do not owe this earth anything. What of this earth is left for us except to drink and dance and fuck and smoke? And for one of our number…” Here her voice dipped low, like she was speaking in a church and the whole gathering hushed to hear her speak. “This will be her last Orr’s Wood Gathering!” Reverent silence ruined by the sounds of Marius Pontmercy sniffing. Enjolras remembered Courfeyrac telling her that it was a goodbye party for someone, but she couldn’t remember who, didn’t know them well. “Eponine! Come up here!”

A curvy girl in short shorts and grey wool stockings, doc martin boots and a pirate jacket clambered a little drunkenly up the sofa, giggling and holding on tight to her arm to stop herself from losing her balance. “R, don’t embarrass me!”

“Eponine! One of the best of us, a shining diamond amongst us lowlifes,” The girl called, a slightly sad grin on her face.

“Here, here!” Shouted Pontmercy.

“We wish you the best on your academic journey and hope against hope that you succeed. Don’t let college ruin you and if they try to keep you down just remember that you have the spirit of these woods in your heart. Though you’ll never truly leave us, though you’ll always be in our hearts, we will all miss you as long as you are gone. May your journey be short and the benefits plenty, may your heart always be full of love and your eyes full of beauty and when you reach the end of your road may you turn around again and come back home. Eponine Thenardier, we will miss you with all our hearts and pray for your failure so that you come back home to us.” She shoved her shoulder, smiling even though her lip was trembling, and she wobbled, almost falling off. “But truly, Eponine. You’re one of us. If you ever need a hand, if you’re ever in a tight spot, just call, ok?” She ceremonially removed the charm that hung around her neck on a leather string and draped it around Eponine’s neck- she lowered her head to accept it, sniffing slightly. Her lip wobbled, and she bit it, smiling even though her eyes were watering.

“Thanks, mate,” she said. “And, and. And. Right. And.” She sniffed again, holding back tears. “And. Right.”

“Aw, come on girl!” Courfeyrac shouted from the crowd.

“Oh, here we go,” Joly snorted. “Need a tissue, babe?”

“Fuck off, I’m fine!” Eponine took a breath. “Right. And. I’mgoingtomissyousosomuchalofyouliwon’tforgetyouever!!” And then she jumped off the sofa, sobbing into her sleeve.

The girl watched her go, hands in her back pockets as she slouched back, balancing effortlessly. “And now the serious shit’s done,” she grinned. “- let’s dance till dawn, forget our worries, and make the most of the days we’ve got left!”

She jumped down off the sofa like a cat, landing hard at Enjolras’ feet and straightening up to look her in the eye again. “Hello,” she said. The music kicked back in, screamingly loud and thudding. The whole atmosphere was almost intoxicating, the smell of night time and fresh air and faint candle smoke and R’s general aroma of cigarettes and alcohol and hoodies that have been worn three days running that should have been off-putting but somehow was really attractive.

“Um. Hi,” Enjolras shouted back, blushing a bit. The other girl was standing a little too close to her for comfort, crowding her with her height.

Courf was making his was over to the pair of them, pulling Jehan along behind him by their hand. “Enjolras! You came!”

“Yeah. Needed to get out of the house for a bit.”

“I’m so glad you’re here!” He grinned. "And I see you've met R already! The honorary leader of our motley drinking crew, meet the actual leader of our serious weekday crew." He leaned over to Enjolras to whisper-shout in her ear. "She’s good at speeches, right?"

"Yeah, she is!"

"No need to sound so surprised!" R chipped in, shamelessly eavesdropping, and nodded towards Enjolras’ still full glass. "You haven't had your drink yet."

"Hmm. What actually is it?"

R wiggled her eyebrows dramatically. "Try it and see! Perhaps it might be the elixir of life, or maybe ambrosia, food of the gods." She leaned closer, breath ghosting across Enjolras' cheek. "Maybe it's a love potion."

"Right, and on that note, I'm off!" Courfeyrac interrupted suddenly. "Come on Jehan, lets go dance."

Enjolras sniffed the shot glass suspiciously, and then shrugged, downing it in one. R looked on, impressed, until Enjolras made a noise like a vomiting cat. "Ugh, that tastes foul!"

She laughed. "Yeah, vodka does tend to be a little strong."

Enjolras scowled at her, and then sighed.

“Just relax, dude. You want to dance?”

“You’re gonna have to get me a hell of a lot drunker than this before I’ll dance.”

The taller girl ruffled a hand through her fringe and grinned, adjusting her beanie hat. “Challenge accepted. I’ll go get you another drink.”

Enjolras leaned back on the upside down sofa and watched her weave his way across through the crowds of dancing people and smoke and noise, hips swaying. The music was catchy, worming into her mind and she felt a little fuzzy already- the drink was stronger than she expected, apparently.

Feuilly grinned at her from the other side of the clearing, waving in time to the music and then leaning back to say something to Bahorel, who looked up at her and grinned, shooting her a thumbs up. “Get in there!”

“What?”

“Get in there! You and R!!”

“I can’t hear you!”

Feuilly rolled his eyes. “Never mind!”

“Oh, ok!” Enjolras said and leaned back again. It was nice, like that, feeling the music and listening to the vague noises of people trying to talk to each other over the music.

R came back and bumped hips with her to make her shuffle along and let her sit down. “Here,” she said, and up close her eyes were even lovelier. Enjolras took the drink and tried not to look away.

“Thanks,” she said, and then, “You’re drunk.”

R nodded, a little smile on her face. “It’s a party, Apollo, you’re meant to be drunk.”

She nodded and downed the second drink. “Never been drunk before.” Pulled a face and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Yuck.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

R grinned and stroked a thumb over her hand. “Any chance you want to dance yet?”

Enjolras groaned. “Ugh, ok fine!”

She let R tangle their fingers together and pull her up, bobbing up and down a little in time to the music. R was a good dancer, properly holding her arm and her waist like a ballroom dancer and keeping her balance perfectly on the uneven floor. Enjolras let her, enjoying the feeling of closeness with a smile. The alcohol was improving the quality of the music considerably and she was definitely enjoying R’s company. She started to relax a little. This was really not as bad as she’d thought, to be honest.

“Where’d you learn to dance like this?”

“Buckingham Palace.”

“What?”

“Well, I did dance classes when I was little, and they figured I was talented, so they sent me up to the palace to teach the Queen to dance.”

Enjolras raised her eyebrows. “I’m not drunk enough to believe that yet.”

“It’s true, honest to god!” She giggled. “I learned a few things off of old Lizzie, I did. Does a mean Tango, the Queen.”

“I call bullshit.”

Dancing past them, Joly called out, “You’ll be doing a lot of that if you spend much more time with R!”

“Fuck off, Bones!” R called to him, and he stuck his middle finger up at her.

“What do you mean?” Enjolras called.

“R. She’s our resident bullshitter! She can tell you a story about anything and not a word of it real!”

“I’ll have you know that every story I tell you is word for word true.”

Enjolras grinned. “Sure it is.”

“It is!” R mock-scowled at Joly, and he skedaddled off in search of Boussuet and their lady friend. “And one thing-” She spun her around, catching her in her arms and dipping her back like something out of an old movie. “- that good old Liz taught me was that-” She pulled her back up so they were stood practically nose to nose. “- it’s rude to shout across the room at other people when you have a perfectly lovely and attentive dance partner right here.”

Enjolras laughed, but it came out far too breathily and girly for her liking and she gulped as R dipped her again, slower this time. “Oh?” She said, carefully. “And what’s the etiquette on getting girls drunk for the first time and flirting with them until they practically beg you to just kiss them already?”

“You know,” R said, smirking. “I don’t believe we covered it. But I can always improvise.” Her gaze flickered down over Enjolras’ lips, for the briefest of moments, and she leaned forward, so close…

… and planted a lipstick-y kiss right on the centre of Enjolras’ forehead.

“I’m going to get another drink.” She smirked, giving Enjolras a little wave over her shoulder as she sashayed off into the crowd.

 

****

 

Enjolras eventually found Courfeyrac again, attempting pitifully to try and get Marius to dance less like a neurotic chicken. She gave a little wave as she walked over, and Courfeyrac grinned at her in his huge heart-shaped sunglasses. "You see why we like coming up here yet?" He called.

Enjolras grinned in response. "It's... better than I expected. I suppose."

"You and R were getting on well!"

"I guess, yeah!" She had to shout over the music. "She's sweet."

"She's pretty damn hot, I know that much," Courf chuckled and took an elbow to the ribs. "Ow!"

"Don't be a-"

"Awww, defending your girlfriend's honour?"

Enjolras scowled. "She's not my girlfriend."

Between the two of them, Marius continued to dance, bobbing uncertainly. Courf nudges him. "You can stop that now, hun."

Enjolras sighed. "Seriously, Courf. What do I do?"

"Get back out there and talk to her! You can't spend your first Orr's Wood party stood in the corner chatting to us weirdos!"

Marius nodded his assent, arms flapping bird-like at his sides. He was a little scared of her, she knew, although she wasn't sure why. Probably something about his inability to speak to girls unless heavily influenced with alcohol and with Courf standing two feet behind him whispering prompts. Speaking of girls...

"That blonde girl over there keeps checking you out," She told him, leaning over so that she could shout in his ear. He flinched a little. She sighed.

Then what she'd said seemed to sink into his brain and he looked across in the direction she'd been looking- a pretty blonde girl in a pink flower-patterned day dress was dancing on her own. A small circle had cleared around her in order to stop her from poking people's eyes out with her wild hand gestures. She was entirely at odds with her surroundings, pink and makeup-less in a circle of people in dark clothes and eyeliner. A bit like a daisy in a field of grass that for some reason had doused itself in glitter- both are equally pretty, just different. Courfeyrac frowned quizzically. "I haven't seen her around here before, I don't think."

Marius' eyes had lit up. "Oh my god!"

Shaking his head, Courf watched him as he bounced up and down a little, his gaze fixated on the dancing girl. She paused, looked up towards him with a smile, and he darted behind Courfeyrac and Enjolras with a wimper. "What is it, boy?" Courf said sarcastically. "Is little Timmy stuck in the old mine shaft?"

Eyes sparkling, Marius' grin stretched to ridiculous proportions. Enjolras took a step back; He was too emotional for her liking. "It's the girl!"

"What girl?" Enjolras asked, trying to shuffle along so that he wasn't hiding behind her anymore.

"I saw her in the park." He took a deep breath. "And I fell in love instantly."

"Right," Said Enjolras. "And on that note, I'm off."

"Me too," Courf stepped away. "You talk to the girl on your own for once, I need to find my datemate!" As Enjolras was walking away, she could hear Courf sniffing over the sound of the music. "My little baby, all grown up!"

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited it a bit- it was bothering me that it seemed almost unfinished :) hope you still like it! :D

Enjolras could still hear Marius begging them to stay as she left. Her cheeks ached from smiling, laughing. They hadn't really got used to grinning like that before.

Suddenly a hand clapped on her shoulder and she jumped. "It's only me! Jeez."

"R!" She breathed, relieved. "You made me jump."

"Scared a stranger would try to hit on you?"

Enjolras laughed. "More like scared someone I know will try and hit me."

Slinging an arm around her shoulder, and sloshing half her beer glass on Enjolras' sleeve as she did so, Grantaire steered her back towards the sofa stage so that they could lean against it. "Believe me, we've had enough fights up here to last a life time. But you're..." She gestured up and down at Enjolras' normal exterior. "All that. Why would someone want to punch you?"

"I have opinions."

"Ah," Grantaire sighed. "A girl with opinions. You do know that opinions are bad for your health?"

"Probably."

"Open your mouth, say 'aaaaah'." Grantaire's lips quirked suddenly as she started playing doctor, looking into her eyes, mouth, poking at her nose until Enjolras slapped her hand away giggling. "It's a pretty serious case of the opinions, doctor," She said to a random kid with dark hair as he passed them. "I'd suggest a course of apathy, at least twice a day, and then we'll see if it all clears up."

Enjolras stuck her tounge out at her, and then blushed, feeling like a kid again, but Grantaire just stuck her tounge out back and drank another mouthful of beer.

"I am a doctor, you know," she said.

Snorting, Enjolras shook her head. "I have been reliably informed that I shouldn't believe a single thing you say."

Grantaire mock-huffed, playing at being offended. "Everything I say is true!" Then she mumbled something that sounded like _but only in an alternate universe._

"Sure."

Grantaire gestured to each part of Enjolras' arm as she listed it; "The clavicle, the scapula, the humerus, the ulna, the radius and the five metacarpi." She paused, pointing back up and resting a finger on her temple. "And this is your head. Scientifically refered to sometimes as the brain-carrier."

Enjolras raised her eyebrow. "You're smarter than you seem."

"Rude!" Grantaire grinned and shuffled on her awkward perch, closer to Enjolras. She could feel a sort of static between them, not quite tangiable but definitely there. Like Yvain's chain, joining the two.

 

She sighed a little hopelessly, looking up at the moon. "I should probably go home."

"So soon, Cinderella?"

Enjolras smiled, huffed. "Yeah well I'm not leaving you one of these shoes to find me by; they were expensive. I'll have to just give you my number or something."

"Or something?" Grantaire wiggled her eyebrows.

"Not whatever you're insinuating! I meant, like, facebook or something."

Grantaire sighed at her, sliding her hand over hers. "Or you could just stay?"

"My parents will worry," Enjolras sighed, turning her hand up to twine her fingers into Grantaire's.

"Do I look like I care?" Grantaire quipped, and then sighed too. "Just stay for the bonfire, yeah?"

Enjolras looked at her watch, then at R's face. Then back at her watch. Then back into R's big green eyes. "Ok. Alright."

 

*********

 

Courf and Jehan had gone home an hour ago, tipsy and glitter-soaked with their hair wreathed in leaves and with their eyes huge in the darkness left as the lights dimmed. So had most of the others, but Enjolras was having too much fun now, distracted and a little too drunk to care about consequences, wanting to get close to R again. They were sitting in a circle on the slightly muddy grass with no regard for their party clothes, the remains of the sofa forming a bonfire in the centre. Just the few of them who were left, Eponine grinning and breathless with a party hat strapped onto her chin and Joly, Bossuet and Feuilly all snuggled up together for warmth far too close to the flames for the rational part of her brain. Marius was still around, suprisingly, sat with his park girl on the grass in front of him. He was braiding her hair, plaiting daisies from the grass into her pink dip-dyed hair. Musi was resting, lying back on the grass with her hair spread out behind her and her lips smiling soundlessly at the sky. Ferre was beside her, legs neatly crossed. Sweat glistened on his neck from dancing, and his tattoos stood out starkly over his veins. His glasses were fogging up but he looked so blissed out. They were all sitting, hardly talking. Just… taking in the air, the atmosphere, the feeling of warmth that comes from being surrounded by people you know, the people who care about you. She was practically plastered to R’s side, eyes wide as she listened to her story.

 

“… and I swear to you, true as I’m standing here, there’s a mermaid in that lake to this very day. Tried to steal my trainers, I said ‘what’s a mermaid want with trainers anyway?’ She said they were for her girlfriend. Very liberal folk, mermaids.”

“Bullshit!” Called Bahorel from across the bonfire.

“Prove it!” Feuilly added, grinning.

Courf leaned over and nudged Enjolras. “She does this. It’s kind of a tradition- R makes up all these bullshit stories and then the rest of us pick them apart.”

R grinned at them both. “I swear on my mother’s life!”

Enjolras laughed, her hair falling loose around her face as her bun unravelled and her white teeth bright against her skin. “I feel sorry for your mother then.”

“Et tu, Brute? Even you don’t believe me?”

“Of course not. Mermaids don’t exist.”

R raised her eyebrows and reached into her pocket, pulling out a scrap of seaweed. “Mermaid hair.” She said, the conviction in her voice making Enjolras splutter and Feuilly and Bahorel boo loudly. R snickered and chucked it at them, watching them scramble to get away from it.

Enjolras sighed, feeling free for once, and leaned gently on her shoulder, her head tilted up towards the stars.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” R said, following her gaze. “They’re even better when the camp fire’s out.” She winked, her grin crinkling her eyes. “I met a shooting star once.”

“Bullshit,” Enjolras grinned, and leaned over towards her. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“Well,” R started. Enjolras began tracing patterns with her fingers up R’s arm. “She was more of a fallen angel really, that’s what shooting stars really are. Very beautiful. Said she tried to climb down from the sky to see what the human world was like for us mere mortals.” Enjolras’ fingers kept tracing their pattern, moving from her arm to her sides, pulling her closer. Grantaire stumbled over her words, her eyes burning into Enjolras’. “But. But, she slipped and fell. And she ended up here, on earth, for good.” She reached out a hand and brushed Enjolras’ hair out of her face. “Absolutely stunning, she was. Glowed from the inside out. You couldn’t see her wings, of course.”

“Of course,” Enjolras breathed.

“But you knew they were there, just by the way she held herself.” R paused again as Enjolras practically straddled her lap. “Perfect, amazing, lovely. Wondrous to behold. Not of this earth, something all-together heavenly. We didn’t even deserve to behold such perfection.”

“She was beautiful?”

“More than beautiful,” R said and brushed their lips together gently, pulling away too soon. “So much more than beautiful.” She kissed her again, a lingering kiss this time, and teased her tongue along her lower lip before pulling away again, frowning slightly. “You do realise I’m talking about you, right?”

 

Enjolras didn’t say anything, just reached up to tug off R’s beanie and tangle her fingers through her hair, pulling her closer again for another kiss.

"Stay with me," Grantaire whispered.

Enjolras didn't answer, just kissed her again, and pressed her face into the warmth of her neck, the smell of warmth and smoke and coffee and alcohol.

She was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :)


End file.
